Month: August 2019

Haahaa.. This year, 2019 is my Indonesian helper 10th years in service. Not like last year (2018) this time, it was way easier to do permit renewal because I didn’t need to send her for FOMEMA check-up. steps for maid permit renewal

Since she just got back from her hometown for two months break, her work permit validity only left about one month.

To make things easy for us before she went back for her hometown, I cleared all the processes. Below is how to renew maid permit for 2019:-

Prepare employment contract with Indonesian Embassy.

Renew her passport. (Because to renew her work permit with immigration, her passport validity must no less than 3 months of expiry from her 1 year renewal term of work permit).

We have been making few staycation trips at Genting Highland just to have feel of living and enjoying view up the hills.

Within month of August 2019, we make 2 trips. Each stay around 2 to 3 nights using AirBNB booking facilities for homestay. Only one of the homestays provides induction stove for cooking which we decided not to spent time on cooking but just eat out and explore food places.

This restaurant serving delicious halal Thai cuisines which most of the night time all tables are taken. Make sure you come early for dinner (before 7.30pm) so your order come quick and no need to wait for vacant table.

We ate few times there just because of its satisfying flavours and at affordable price.

Ordered same dishes were never bored for me laa. Hehehe. So this was the food that we ate repeatedly.

Price range for all of the above within RM91 – RM94, with 5 bowls of plain rice and ice water or maybe with additional 1 or 2 glasses of teh tarik and kopi O. Food deliciously cook and worth the price. Cheaper for that 5-6 lauk.

It is cheap and good food especially in Genting now the food price is expensive.

Use Case

I want to know programmatically whether listings posted at Mudah.My are similar or not even though it is posted by different persons and different date.

To do this, I think the best way is to detect whether the photos are similar or not.

Why To Know Same Property Is Advertised Over Period of Time?

I would like to know whether the property
1) price change over time, signalling time to purchase it
2) possibility owner becomes desperate to let it go if advertised for quite some time. So I can get better price

Same Property But Advertised by Different Agents and Different Date

All listings refer to same property by evaluating using naked eyes.
So now, I want to detect programmatically that all the listings are referring to same property by detecting those photos are similar.

Bedroom Images

Technique Used

Step 1: Fingerprinting the Photos

Fingerprinting the photos is using image hashing technique. In this case, DHash will be used.

Step 2: Compare the Photos

After fingerprinting, image hash will be compared among listings. If the image hash are same or Levenshtein distance is less or equal to 2, then we can consider as the listings are referring to same property.

Results

Photos

Size

Noticeable Features

Image Hash
(DHash)

Listing 1 - Kitchen

18KB
480x480

Kitchen - listing 1 ,listing 3 and listing 6 are similar

cc6c7a727e7c3e77

Listing 2 - Kitchen

19KB
640x480

Has door and wall fan

3f37333333333339

Listing 3 - Kitchen

18KB
480x480

cc6c7a727e7c3e77

Listing 4 - Kitchen

17KB
480x480

Kitchen - Listing 4 color is lighter compared to listing 1, 3 & 6

cc6e7a727e7c7e77

Listing 6 - Kitchen

18KB
480x480

cc6c7a727e7c3e77

Listing 2 - Bedroom

22KB
640x480

similar with bedroom listing 5 only size is different.

e1b90d0c8ccc84c1

Listing 5 - Bedroom

10KB
320x240

e1b52d0c8ccc84c1

Kitchen Photos

If we take Listing 1 as a base, we can say easily that it has same image hash with Listing 3 & Listing 6.

Listing 1 has Levenshtein distance of 2 with Listing 4.
Listing 1 has Levenshtein distance of 15 with Listing 5.

Bedroom Photos

Listing 2 and Listing 5 has Levenshtein distance of 2.

Conclusion

We can conclude photos are similar if their image hash is the same or their Levenshtein distance is less or equal to 2.

False Positive

What happens if different properties use same photos such as signage or building block? The algorithm will detect it as same property even though it is not.

To avoid this, we should establish a database of signage or building block to remove this false positive.

As a parent we need to educate our kids on how important for them to manage their time wisely. To get them to value time they need to be discipline.

I remembered during my younger age there was no electronics, gadgets or apps that could help to manage my schedule or alerted me to do a certain task. What I did was to prepare a scrapped book with tasks/ actions segregated by time frame on day to day basis. For example; at 5.oo – 5.30pm (watering plant & fold cloth), 6.oopm (shower) … felt guilty when didn’t follow it.

But these activities are more to routine and will become meticulous even though it’s important to be time conscious. So we focus on the time filling instead.

We introduced our boy to music lesson which he chose to play drum at first and permanently become his liking which he continuously attends to weekend class. He practices every day for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

We take step forward to measure his efforts in this field by registering him for Drum Yamaha Grade 10 Examination. We want to expose him playing in front of examiners and to develop his self confidence.

He practices nearly every day using his electronics drum. So far according to his teacher, he is able to do it.

hadeef yamaha drum grade examination session

Yamaha Grade Examination was held at YAMAHA centre in Kelana Jaya. Now we need to wait for the results which according to staff result will take around 1 month to be released.